Grounds to Kill Read online

  A few minutes later Arthur appeared fully dressed.

  “Guess I’ll go,” he said.

  I didn’t ask him to stay, but he glanced around the apartment taking in the blackened mess of fingerprint powder. “Unless you’re really freaked out about staying on your own and want me to stay?”

  I weighed my choices. A) let Arthur stay and have him attempt to sexually finesse my anger away, or B) risk that whoever broke into my place would come back.

  “Yeah, you should just go. I’ll be okay.” I waved my hand to indicate the light streaming in through my blinds. “It’s morning anyway.”

  He shrugged and headed for the door, slipping bare feet into his runners. He was reaching to lean against the door for balance, but thought better of it when he again noticed the black powder coating the jam.

  “Spray cleaner will usually get it right off,” he said.

  I nodded although housecleaning was not top of my to do list these days.

  “I guess the reason they were all over this break-in was on account of what happened to Misty, right?” I asked suddenly. “I mean, last year someone down the hall had their TV stolen and Seattle PD didn’t show up for two days.”

  “Well, she’s murdered and then there’s a break-in down the hall at her half sister’s place so, yeah, they gotta assume there could be a connection.”

  “But it’s probably just a coincidence, right?”

  “What can I tell ya, Jen? Anything’s possible. The world is a fucked-up place. I catch creeps like this every day.”

  “No, you don’t. You hand out parking tickets.”

  “But I could easily catch murderers.”

  He stepped forward, lifted my chin and planted a quick kiss on my lips. I looked toward Dad’s backpack in the corner and an idea came to me. Maybe the picture in Dad’s sack didn’t actually belong to Misty. Maybe Dad had one and Misty had one. It could happen, right?

  “How would I go about getting into Misty’s apartment?”

  “Now why would you want to do that?” He sounded frustrated.

  “Well, there’s a picture Misty had. One of the two of us. I’d like it as, um, a keepsake.”

  “Why? You hated each other.”

  “Maybe my dad might want it someday if he ever, um, gets better.”

  Arthur knew about Dad. Not all the details. Just that he was schizoid and homeless. We’d run into my dad wandering the streets one evening when Arthur and I went for pizza not far from Merlot’s. At the time Arthur had been cool about it, but now my comment brought pity to his eyes, which only made me angry.

  “I remember seeing a picture of the two of you in her place.” He seemed to think about it a second. “It was on a table somewhere in the living room.”

  When you were screwing my half sister you took the time to check out the knickknacks. Nice.

  “So do you think I could get it?”

  “Don’t know how that would work, Jen. You being a suspect and all.”

  He opened the door, and I snagged him by the back of his T-shirt.

  “I am not a suspect for killing Misty,” I shouted indignantly. Then in a small voice I added, “Am I?”

  He laughed a small mean laugh and tugged his shirt out of my grasp.

  “Well, you’re all they’ve got, and everyone knows it’s usually family you look at first.”

  “But—but I didn’t do it!” I cried.

  “You hated her. You lived down the hall. And you threw shit in her apartment. Those three facts will work against you.”

  “B-but I don’t have access to her apartment and they said there was no sign of a break-in. It’s not like she’d invite me in for cocktails,” I pointed out with desperation. “I hated her, but basically we avoided each other.”

  “Except that time when you two ended up rolling around in a night club parking lot pulling each other’s hair out.”

  “I caught her letting the air out of my tires,” I said. “How do you know about that anyway?”

  He sighed.

  “I’m a cop, sweetie,” he said as if that explained everything. Then he tapped the end of my nose with his finger and sauntered off down the hall.

  I locked up and pushed the chair back in front of the door. My fingers played with my phone and scrolled down to Mitch’s number. I thought about calling him up and unloading my worries about being a suspect. I didn’t want to make things weird between us at work, so I put my phone away and tried to think things through on my own.

  Even though I hadn’t slept that night, I still couldn’t sleep now that it was morning. I didn’t want to be a murder suspect, but I wasn’t going to throw my dad under the bus either. It was 7:00 a.m. and I heard Mrs. Rudnicki open her door across the hall. I swear the woman never slept.

  It still really ticked me off that she’d told the cops I was sneaky. How mean was that? This from a woman who noticed everything about everybody, but still couldn’t see the long nose hairs protruding from her own huge nostrils.

  “It’s not just me,” I grumbled to myself. “Nobody likes a busybody,” I told myself.

  But then I started thinking, because somebody had liked Mrs. Rudnicki. Misty. Misty got along famously with her. I’d crawled back into bed, but now I sat up and started really thinking about that, because I remembered last summer when Misty had suitcases packed and was heading away probably to lead some poor married man astray. I’d carefully avoided Misty, but couldn’t help but overhear her thanking Mrs. Rudnicki for taking the time to water her plants while she was gone. That meant Mrs. Rudnicki had a key. At least she did then.

  I jumped out of bed and tugged sweatpants underneath my Seahawks T-shirt. Mojo was shocked by my sudden movements and even more startled when I snapped the leash on her collar, shoved my chair blockade aside once again, and half-dragged her out of the apartment. I was moving so fast I nearly bowled over my intended target. Mrs. Rudnicki might be nosy, but she moved slo-o-o-w-w-w.

  “You shouldn’t run in the halls,” the old lady hissed.

  I bit back the retort that would’ve been “This isn’t high school,” and instead smiled sweetly.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I nodded to my dog. “Mojo needed to go out, and I didn’t expect to find you...”

  Here in the hall probably listening at everyone’s door.

  “And actually this is very good timing because I wanted to talk to you.”

  Mrs. Rudnicki narrowed her beady eyes and regarded me through mere slits.

  “About what?”

  “Well, first I wanted to thank you for taking care of Mojo when she got out during the break-in.”

  That was true because she could’ve just ignored Mojo and who knows what could’ve happened? Mojo was a smart dog. She could’ve easily snuck onto an opening elevator, reached the main floor, got out and been struck dead by a passing motorist.

  Mrs. Rudnicki nodded abruptly, causing her nose hairs to sway in the breeze.

  “You’re welcome. Not the dog’s fault. Can’t expect a dumb animal to fend for itself in a situation like that.”

  “Right.”

  Mojo tugged on the leash to go back inside the apartment and I tugged her back. Mrs. Rudnicki shuffled down the hall and we slow-stepped directly behind her.

  “Also, you had spare keys to Misty’s apartment, right? To water her plants and stuff when she went away?”

  Mrs. Rudnicki shrugged.

  “As I told the officers, last time I was there was in the summer.” She waggled a finger an inch from my face. “Don’t go trying to pin this on me. Everybody knows you’re the one that killed her!”

  I gasped and pressed a hand to my heart.

  “I did not! I wouldn’t hurt a fly! You might not know this, but Misty and I, well, we may not have always gotte
n along, but we were, um, related.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Half sisters. I know.”

  She took off walking down the hall at a faster clip. We weren’t breaking any speed records here, but she was hustling.

  “I just want inside her apartment for a minute,” I said.

  “Why? So you can clean up the evidence?” She snapped.

  She pressed the call button for the elevator and glared at me.

  “Okay, that doesn’t even make sense because they’ve already collected all the evidence and that’s why the crime scene tape is down.” I pointed down the hall to Misty’s apartment as proof. “Misty had a picture of the two of us when we were teens. I just want that picture. As something to remember her by.”

  Mrs. Rudnicki glanced at me then quickly away.

  “Whatever for?”

  “Well, I don’t have one of us together and she was pretty much all the family I had left.”

  I tried looking pathetic and sad. It wasn’t hard. Pathetic and sad kind of summed up my week.

  The elevator arrived and we stepped inside. I dragged a reluctant Yorkshire Terrier with me.

  “Misty said your dad was still alive, but...”

  The way her voice trailed off I knew that Misty, in addition to not being able to keep her knees together, also couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. “He’s um...not well.” All these years and the words still stuck in my throat like stale popcorn. “He suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.”

  “Be that as it may...” She pressed L for lobby and then threw her hands up in the air to say it wasn’t her problem.

  When we reached the ground floor she picked up the pace until we were outside. Mojo took to sniffing and squatted for a quick pee. Mrs. Rudnicki took off at a near run around the side of the building, which I found odd. I was guessing she was late for her patrol of the outer perimeter of the building. Mojo was in the sniff zone so I figured I might as well hold tight while she did her thing. Eventually Mrs. Rudnicki would come back around this side to re-enter the building. I had no choice to wait anyway; I’d forgotten my keys in my apartment in my haste to catch my neighbor.

  A few minutes later she returned and stopped in surprise when she saw me. She had a long white box tucked under her arm.

  “You’re still here,” she said needlessly.

  “Mojo just finished,” I replied. “Also, I forgot my keys.”

  She rolled her eyes and unlocked the back door. We went inside and rode the elevator back up together in silence for a moment until I smelled something very distinctive.

  “Lemon scones!” I turned and pointed to the box. “Are those scones from Fresh! Fresh! Fresh!?”

  “Yeah. So?” She shifted the box uncomfortably under her arm.

  “Where on earth did you get those?”

  “None of your beeswax, young lady.”

  We stepped off the elevator on the second floor.

  “It is my beeswax. Those lemon scones are only supposed to be made for Merlot’s. Nobody else!”

  Mrs. Rudnicki looked over at me sheepishly.

  “Fine.” Her penciled-in eyebrows scrunched together until they were one and began to wrangle with the deep creases in her forehead.

  “Fine, what?”

  “Fine, I’ll let you in Misty’s apartment so you can get your picture, but I’m going to stand and watch you the entire time,” she said as if I’d asked her to eat a human heart instead of walk to the end of the hall and open a door.

  “Agreed.”

  She flipped through the keys on her keychain until she found the one she wanted, then Mojo and I followed her down the hall. After she unlocked the door and pushed it open we both stood silently staring inside. Mojo broke the silence by whimpering and trying to pull me in the opposite direction.

  “She started off as Misty’s dog,” I reminded Mrs. Rudnicki. “Probably she shouldn’t go inside. I don’t want her to be, you know, traumatized.” I handed her the leash and took a step into the apartment.

  “Don’t try anything sneaky. Get in and get out, lickety split.”

  “Right.”

  I swallowed thickly and looked around. The blood stain on the floor was still there. The splat mark from the dog excrement was also still there. What wasn’t there was the picture. I felt queasy.

  “Hurry up,” Mrs. Rudnicki hissed. “I don’t expect that picture will jump into your hands without you looking around for it!”

  But it had been there. Right there. On the credenza where I could see it from the door. And now it was gone. My nerves began to ping and my stomach tied itself in knots. The picture had ended up in Dad’s backpack. I swallowed back tears and went through the motions of looking through Misty’s place for the photo before dragging my feet back out into the hall.

  “Well?” Mrs. Rudnicki demanded.

  I simply shook my head and blinked back tears before taking back Mojo’s leash.

  “It’s gone,” I said as my chin dropped to my chest.

  “She got rid of it? How do you know? You weren’t in there very long. Go and take another look around.”

  I shook my head and began to walk back to my apartment leaving Mrs. Rudnicki to lockup.

  Did Dad do it? Did he kill Misty, leave a lost dog flyer on her face and then steal the picture, stuffing it into his backpack? If he didn’t, that meant someone killed her first and then he would’ve had to go into the apartment after the killer, but before the cops. My head was swimming and suddenly I felt nauseated. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Mrs. Rudnicki zip inside Misty’s apartment. Probably just to make sure I hadn’t vandalized the place.

  I reached my door and didn’t have the strength to open it. My vision blurred with tears and Mojo sat patiently waiting for her owner to get her act together. I didn’t know how many years she’d have to wait.

  When you find out someone you love is seriously mentally ill, there’s a grieving process that goes on inside your head. You know in your heart you have to say goodbye to a lot of dreams and that sucks. Then that person chooses sleeping in an alley over taking medications that could help and that sucks at a greater level altogether. Over the years I’d made a certain amount of peace with the thought that my relationship with Dad wouldn’t be a father-daughter-Sunday-brunch kind of thing. But that didn’t mean I’d accepted that one day I’d be holding evidence that he’d committed a murder.

  Just as I had my hand on the door knob, Mrs. Rudnicki called out to me.

  “Hey!”

  “What?” I called back.

  “Wait, I have something to show you,” she replied in an annoyed old lady warble.

  Curiosity not only killed that cat, but it also destroyed a nice pity party in the process. I watched as she approached me with a thick book under one arm and the Fresh! Fresh! Fresh! box under the other. When she caught up to me at my door, she thrust the book into my hands.

  “A photo album’s better than one picture anyway, right?” she said, looking immensely proud of herself.

  I flipped through the thick book and took in the dozens of pages. Many pictures were of Misty with her mom, a voluptuous peroxide blonde I never knew. Then, toward the end, pictures of Misty with my dad. My throat tightened and I couldn’t speak.

  “It was in her bedroom on the shelf and I figured you might as well have it.”

  “Thanks,” I said quietly. “That was very nice of you.”

  “I understand, you know,” she said softly.

  I turned and stared at her, blinking back tears.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I understand what it’s like to be at odds with family.” She shook her head. “Even at my age, it’s nearly impossible to get it right. Sometimes family just defies logic.” She tapped the bo
x of scones and sighed.

  “Yeah.”

  I agreed because I did not want to launch into the fact that I felt bad because my dad could be a killer and wasn’t exactly mourning the loss of my relationship with Misty. Mrs. Rudnicki and I were almost having a real conversation and I didn’t want to blow it.

  “I didn’t know you had family around still.”

  “A grandson. He’s all I got left, but we’re not close.” She nodded sharply and then I watched her face close off.

  She walked into her apartment and I heard her turn her two deadbolts. I returned to my own place and tossed the album onto the sofa before moving twice as many objects in front of my door before I headed to the shower to get ready for work.

  As I was leaving my apartment, my palm began to tingle. It wasn’t a full-blown itch attack, merely a tickle. Still, before leaving I grabbed a pen and notepad from the drawer of my end table and prepared to play stenographer for the Hand of Doom that I’d taken to calling HOD for short.

  The profound message was: #207B

  “Seriously?” I demanded of the air. Then I held my left hand up to my face. “That’s all you’ve got? Good ol’ #207B? I thought we were long done with that one.”

  I tossed the notepad to the end table and stormed out of my apartment. For nearly a year I’d gotten periodic itchings to scribble out #207B. I had no clue what it meant, if anything.

  When I reached the parking lot, I noticed a white delivery van with familiar rust markings on the side pulling into visitor parking. Out of the van hopped Charlie from Fresh! Fresh! Fresh! bakery.

  He nearly bowled me over to get to the apartment building door, but didn’t seem to notice me.

  “Hey, Charlie,” I called to his back.

  He turned and glanced at me.

  “Yeah?” He looked not at all surprised, happy or even disappointed to see me. Basically, Charlie was Charlie...devoid of all human emotions. Except lust. His gaze scraped over me.

  “It’s me. Jen.” I added, “From Merlot’s.”